Vancouver hero and villain: Pro mountain biker IDd as rioter

There’s nothing like senseless violence and destruction to bring out the worst in people. And less frequently, the best.

On the one hand, we have Alex Prochazkas, a.k.a. Alex Pro, professional mountain biker and daredevil skier. That’s him doing a back flip off an 80-foot cliff.

But the flip he’ll probably be remembered for is overturning a car during the Vancouver rioting. He’s been identified as the hooligan in the camouflage hat and Oakley t-shirt, exulting after helping to flip some unfortunate person’s vehicle.

Prochazkas enjoys the sponsorships of Target and Oakley. Probably better make that “enjoyed.”

The video below shows him and a couple of other men confronting a mob trying to set the interior of a pickup truck on fire. At one point, the 255-pound Easterbrook grabs flaming paper and flings it from the vehicle, only to have a rioter toss it back it. Easterbrook decked him with a forearm shiver.

“It’s too bad I ended up having to level somebody,” he told The Province newspaper. “I don’t like to have to do that. I had to put him down fast.”

The hooligans, enraged by someone interrupting their fun, swarmed him, punching and kicking him as he fell to the ground. The crowd cheered them on as he was beaten. Easterbrook was bloodied on the head and bruised all over, but his injuries could have been much worse had not the police just then arrived.

The unidentified man in the green shirt helping Easterbrook apparently defied the mob throughout the rioting – he was seen trying to prevent the destruction of two police cars in another video.